True Friends
by Night Kaida
Summary: "You chased Loke away!" Lucy screamed at him as she pounded her fists against his chest, tears streaming down her face as the boy realized what was wrong. She didn't hear what he had said about her. All she had heard was the pinkette threatening the boy to stay away from the girl he loved. "I hate you, Natsu!" With those words, Natsu felt his heart stop. AU, rating may change.
1. Chapter 1

It had started out as an innocent trip to the store. A short trip to get the new issue of her favorite magazine, Pop Star Weekly, then go home and snuggle up in her blankets to read it, a cup of her favorite tea for her to sip in her hands. Maybe she'd even invite Levy over and tease her about the magazine's 'tall dark and handsome' Gajeel Redfox. Levy always denied having even a slight crush on the famous bad-boy, but Lucy's girl instincts (and the massive blush that always spread across the small blunette's face) told her otherwise. And that's how she planned the afternoon. But fate, however, wasn't exactly in favor of letting that happen.

"Dammit!" She heard a curse from behind her as she walked to the cash register. "Someone got the last issue!"

Curious, the blonde turned around. She expected some prissy middle school girl to be complaining about her taking the last magazine, despite it being her right. It wouldn't be the first time that happened to her. What she did find was far from her guess. A pink-haired boy about her age, maybe older, has starring at the now empty shelf, a clear look of irritation on his face.

She could have turned and walked away. Could have left and gone home to her warm blankets and steaming hot tea. Something inside her, however, compelled her to approach him. And so she did.

"Excuse me..." She began. Beautiful brown orbs turned to look at her, a brief look of shock registering on the man's face. "Are you looking for Pop Star Weekly?" It was a dumb question, she knew. Why else would he be in front of the shelf with the giant sign saying "POP STAR WEEKLY" if he wasn't? But at the same time, it had been the only thing to say that had come to mind.

"Uh, yeah..." He stuttered, sounding nervous for some reason.

Lucy cocked an eyebrow. "Isn't it a girl's magazine?... Unless... are you gay?"

She said it so casually the pinkette choked on his own breath. Coughing, he managed out, "N-No! It's for a friend!"

"Oh, is it for your girlfriend?" She asked, a small smile tugging at her lips.

Oddly enough, the boy burst out laughing. Lucy frowned, wondering what was so funny. "S-Sorry." He said after finally coming out of his fit of giggles. "My friend's a guy, but the thought of me even looking at Metal-Head in that way is just hilarious!"

Lucy chuckled slightly. At least he had a good sense of humor, that much she could tell. "So is your friend gay?" She asked with a sly grin.

"No... Well... Not as far as I can tell, anyways." He chuckled once more. "But he just wanted to make sure they didn't post an embarrassing photo of him after he threatened them."

"Wait..." Lucy paused as his words registered in her head. "You... You know someone in this magazine?!"

The pink-haired boy frowned. "Yeah, why?"

She could feel her jaw drop. He was friends with one of the most famous boys in the country, possibly even the world, and he didn't think anything of it?! "Who?!" She suddenly demanded.

The boy looked taken aback. "Er... Gajeel, does it really matter?" Lucy's eyes went wide. THIS guy was friends with THE Gajeel Redfox?!

"YES! It matters! Gajeel's famous, and my friend has a HUGE crush on him!"

The boy chuckled again. "Well, maybe I could introduce him to her?" He offered.

"Y-You would do that?..." She stammered, shocked that he was offering her such a thing.

"Sure!" He replied with a grin. "Bolts-for-Brains could use a girl to straighten him out! Get out your phone, I'll give you my number! By the way, what's your name?"

She did as she was told, slipping the small device out of her pocket. She flipped it open and selected to add a new contact before smiling up at him. "It's Lucy. What's your number?"

He grinned at her and gave her his number before slipping his own phone out. "Let me get yours." He said, flipping it open.

"Uh... What name should I put it under?" She asked, realizing she hadn't caught his name.

"Oh, sorry!" He chuckled, somewhat embarrassed he had forgotten the common courtesy of giving his own name when she had given him hers. "My name is Natsu!"

Lucy typed his name in and pressed save when a sudden thought made her freeze. "Natsu... Dragneel?"

Natsu looked up at her and blinked. "Uh yeah, why?"

Lucy had read all about him. The son of Igneel Dragneel, the founder of the world's most popular toy company in the world. Igneel had suddenly disappeared one day without a trace. Only a year later, his son had mysteriously vanished as well. A search had been conducted, but not a single clue was found. That had been two years ago. With the case at a dead end, the cops, and the reporters, had given up and he was assumed dead. The company was handed over to Igneel's best friend and Natsu's step-father, Gildarts Clive, and everything had settled down. It was all a huge mystery, but people had accepted the strange happenings, and forgot all about the two. Lucy, of course, had been interested in the case ever since the founder's disappearance. Normally, she'd suspect the man who the company had been passed on to, but Gildarts was a kind-hearted man who couldn't hurt a fly. While the rest of the world had accepted the case as some strange happening, Lucy had been trying to uncover the mystery ever since, but had never gotten any closer to it than the police had.

"The son of Igneel Dragneel that just up and vanished into thin air one day, standing before me claiming he knows THE Gajeel Redfox and asking for my phone number?" She snorted. "Yeah, right. I bet you're just some stupid pervert that just wants to sleep with me. Get out of my sight."

With that, she turned and stormed out of the small convenience store, throwing money on the counter as she stomped past, leaving the pink-haired teen standing in silence, wondering what had just happened.

**I swear I saw a typo in the beginning somewhere, but now I can't find it... Damn. If anyone finds that little bastard, please, let me know!  
**

**For anyone reading Never Trust Kittens, I plan on updating it VERY soon! I's so late and I'm so ashamed ;-;**

**And I might end up turning this into a lemon if people want, so tell me what you think! I only plan on having 3 or 4 chapters, maybe 5 if I do end up doing the lemon.**


	2. Chapter 2

Natsu sighed as he walked back to his cottage located at the edge of the woods on the border of town. The only thing he could think of on his walk home was the busty blonde he had run into. After contemplating her words for a bit, he realized she had been exactly right. He had suddenly vanished off the face of the Earth, the only one knowing where he had gone being Gildarts, who had sworn to secrecy. He had his reasons for leaving, and a small part had reminded him that being dead to society had been part of his initial intention when he had left. When Luigi, or whatever, had spoken his last name, he mentally panicked. He'd been living on the outskirts of the small town of Magnolia for two years now, hoping no one would have guessed his connections to the mysterious incident of the missing Dragneels. He had thought, for a brief moment, all that was going to be over, and he'd have to re-restart in an even less populated town, leaving his only remaining friends behind. But when the girl had accused him of being a fake and stormed off, he knew he should have been glad, but only felt a sense of unreasonable sadness come over him.

Natsu felt a small wave of happiness for the first time since the blonde had stormed off that afternoon as he made his way up to the door. With a small push, he opened it, not lingering on the fact it had been unlocked. There was nothing he wanted to do more than plop down in his hammock all alone, or with his cat Happy, perhaps, and fall asle-

"Game over!"

"WHAT?! THAT'S BULLSHIT, I KNIFED THAT GUY BEFORE HE COULD EVEN GET CLOSE!"

Natsu stood frozen in his doorway, starring at the two intruders.

One of the said people glanced over his shoulder to look at Natsu. "Oi, Salamander! You get it or what?"

Natsu groaned and shook his head. He had just nearly forgotten about the incident at the convenience store when Gajeel just had to bring it up again. And even Gray was here to help bring down his mood even more.

Natsu's eye twitched. He was definitely NOT in the mood to deal with these two morons.

"What are you doing here?" He snarled.

Gray raised an eyebrow from where he sat in front of Natsu's TV. "What's your problem, flame-breath?"

"My PROBLEM is that you guys just randomly broke into my house-"

"We didn't break in, we used the key under the mat." Gray interrupted, getting a confirmatory nod from Gajeel. Natsu sighed, making a mental note to move the key to his house for times like this.

"You came to my house UNINVITED," he corrected, "and the girl who took the last magazine called me a lying pervert that wanted to go to sleep with her, or something like that!" Gajeel and Gray glanced at each other before they both burst out laughing. Natsu felt his face heat up and his anger rise even more. "What's so funny?!" He demanded.

"First of all," Gajeel spoke up, quickly getting his fit of laughter under control, but failing to wipe the conceited smirk off his face, "I believe she thought you wanted to "sleep" with her, as in have sex, not fall asleep with her, moron."

"And second," Gray continued, earning a glare from the bigger man for interrupting, "how did she think you were a pervert when you're asexual?"

"Well, she-HEY!" Natsu snapped, realizing what his so-called "friend" had just said. "I'm not asexual! And she knew who I was, and apparently it's a little far-fetched that a famous kid that disappeared off the planet was asking for her number and saying he knew "THE Gajeel Redfox"." He explained, putting air quotes around the last part and mocking her tone.

"You asked for her number?" Gajeel cocked an eyebrow, not believing what he was hearing. Natsu had never even looked twice at a girl, no matter how hot, and his two friends had started to believe he was homosexual. The idea of their friend being bold enough to ask a girl for her number was astounding to them.

"Yeah, so?"

"Was she hot?" Gray piped up, fully absorbed in what Natsu was saying.

"Ah.. well... No-wait... I mean... yeah, s-sorta..." He stuttered at the end, feeling the blood rush to his face as he stood in the doorway, embarrassed.

Gajeel's grin spread across his face even more. "Salamander's got a crush!"

"Wha-" Natsu's brain started putting the pieces together as he realized what they had assumed. "No! It's not like that! She wanted my number, I told her I knew Gajeel and apparently her friend likes him, so..."

"OI!" The said man snapped, "DON'T BE TRYIN' TA SET ME UP OR NUTHIN!"

"First of all," Natsu growled, his patience growing thin, "I wasn't trying to set you up with a girl I haven't even met," okay, well maybe he was, but that's not something you wanted to admit to the moody teen if you valued a full set of teeth. "And secondly, you could use a girl to loosen you up. Or at least a cat if you're planning on dying alone."

"Cats are for pussies!" Gajeel snarled, ignoring Natsu's own cat sleeping in the corner. "And I ain't got no need for a girl, they're obnoxious and dumb!"

"Dumb?" Gray repeated with a snort. "At least some of them are smart enough to come up with a better adjective."

"You wanna go, brat?!"

"Let's go, one on one round, right now, no restrictions!" Gray replied, tossing the man a controller. Gajeel caught it eagerly, and took a seat on the floor. "Get ready, I'll snipe your ass!"

"Yeah right! You couldn't even knife me when I was right in front of ya!"

"I TOLD YOU THE BUTTON WAS STUCK!" The two continued to argue, forgetting all about the pinkette who owned the house they had invaded.

Natsu let out a sigh before deciding it was for the best if he left the two morons alone. After a few boring minutes of watching his friends play his game and arguing, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Slipping the device out, he checked it, seeing there was a new message from an unknown sender.

'Can you prove it?'

Natsu frowned. Prove what? He sent a reply back, 'Who is this?' and waited for a response.

It only took about a minute or two for a reply. 'Sorry, this is a friend of Lucy's, the girl you met at the store this afternoon. I'm using her cell while she's in the shower, so I have to make this quick. Can you prove you're actually Natsu or that you know Gajeel?'

Natsu grinned to himself. Now he had the blonde's number. And her friend seemed to be more worried about correct grammar in texting than rushing the conversation, he noted.

'Idk how 2 prove im natsu, but heres the pic gaj wanted 2 keep out of the magazine.' He inserted the picture of the burly man that the magazine had been kind enough to give him before continuing to type. 'neighborhood stray took a liking 2 him but a few mins ago he said cats wer 4 pussies' Sure enough, the picture was one of Gajeel sound asleep in a field not too far from Natsu's home, a small black cat happily sleeping in a ball on his chest.

'Aww! He looks so sweet!' The girl (he assumed) replied. 'Is Gajeel there?'

Natsu grinned before pulling up the camera on his phone and pointing it at his said friend. "Gajeel, say cheese!" He said with a laugh and took the picture. He smirked at the photo. Gajeel was scowling (like always) at the camera and giving it the finger. He sent it to the girl in a textless message.

'Guess that answers that. You want to convince Lucy you're the real Natsu, right? Be at the ice cream shop at 1 tomorrow, I'll tell her to meet me there and you can convince her. Offer to buy her an ice cream and she'll hear anything out, I guarantee it. I hear her getting out of the shower, so I have to go. Good luck!'

After finishing reading the last text message, Natsu couldn't help but smile.

He had a date with Lucy.

**Ugh. Why is it so hard to type in text language? Guess I'm just too big a grammar freak.**

**BTW, that was Levy texting Natsu. was trying to make it obvious with her asking about Gajeel, but just in case people didn't realize I put it here.**

**And I hope everyone got their Christmas wishes granted! My best friend's Nana died Christmas morning :( Hopefully (her name is Hope), all of you guys had happier holidays. (I got an Xbox and GTA5, not to mention tons of MLP stuff, so I'm happy!)**

**And for the record Gray, if they weren't even close, there's no way you COULD knife him. ;) (unless you're using kunai)**

**NOTICE: sometime in the near future I will be changing my pen name from Night Kaida to D3m0nDarks.**

**Should the next chapter start off when he's heading to the ice cream store, or about a year later when they're friends? I don't really want to add a bunch of character relationship development in the story, so if I do end up adding that chapter, there will be a time skip after. Or possibly during so the chapter can have a bit of a cliffhanger, but that's pretty unlikely. What do you think?**

**So far, this story has one vote for it not to be a lemon, so unless I get a few more requests for one, it won't be.**


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